Who we are
Cadw is made up of around 250 people working across a range of disciplines.
Around 100 of our people are custodians — working at monuments in our care — or are part of the in-house teams that undertake conservation and maintenance at our sites. We have specialist staff, including field monument wardens and inspectors of historic buildings, ancient monuments and historic parks and gardens, who are based all over Wales.
Many of our staff are regularly ‘out and about’ around Wales, visiting sites, meeting the public or local authority representatives — little of Cadw’s work can be done only from behind a desk.
Internal operating board
The head of Cadw is Gwilym Hughes who reports to Jason Thomas, Director of Culture, Sport and Tourism. The head of Cadw sits on an internal operating board which supports, scrutinises and monitors Cadw’s strategic direction, business plan and standards.
The board currently comprises:
- Jane Richardson – Chair and non-executive member
- Gwilym Hughes – Deputy Director and Head of Cadw
- Huw Davies – Head of Finance and Central Services
- Liz Girling – non-executive member
- Peter Wakelin – non-executive member
- Steven Foulston – non-executive member
- Gaynor Legall – non-executive member
- Greg Stevenson – non-executive member
- Tracy Dicataldo – staff representative
The structure of Cadw
Cadw has six operational branches:
We champion the appreciation, protection and conservation of the historic environment of Wales.
We do this through a broad range of activities including:
- listing buildings, scheduling monuments and registering historic parks and gardens of national importance
- providing statutory advisory services for planning applications, ecclesiastical exemptions and listed building consents
- helping owners to look after their scheduled monuments through advice, guidance and the scheduled monument consent process
- overseeing surveys of listed buildings and scheduled monuments at risk and offering advice to help improve their condition
- offering advice and guidance to owners and occupiers of listed buildings about how best to manage change
- offering grants to conserve and improve scheduled monuments and listed buildings
- identifying the impacts of climate change on the historic environment and how best to adapt to them
- promoting and supporting training in conservation craft skills
- • working with partners to find new uses for redundant places of worship and other public buildings
- supporting programmes of activity ranging from community excavations to economic regeneration
- providing support though grants to partners working in the heritage sector in Wales, including the Welsh archaeological trusts and conservation bodies such as the Friends of Friendless Churches and Addoldai Cymru
- making information freely available about designated sites that are of national importance on Cof Cymru — the National Historic Assets of Wales.
We develop policy for the protection and sustainable management of the historic environment, particularly to support primary and secondary legislation.
This includes:
- the implementation and evaluation of the Historic Environment (Wales) Act 2016
- the development of management guidance to support the conservation of the historic environment
- working with planning colleagues to integrate the management of the historic environment into the planning system.
- supporting the delivery of government business across Cadw.
We maintain, conserve and manage Cadw’s 130 properties in care.
Cadwraeth Cymru — our own in-house conservation team — provides specialist services to exacting standards across Wales. Our work is sometimes supplemented by specialist external heritage contractors.
Our work includes:
- major conservation programmes based on authoritative information obtained from periodic inspections
- providing essential services to keep Cadw sites safe and accessible
- undertaking major building projects to improve the visitor experience.
This contributes to our financial sustainability and supports local communities.
We offer people safe, enjoyable and inspirational visits by making our sites accessible to everyone:
- we have over 100 custodians who manage safe and enjoyable public access to Cadw’s 28 staffed sites
- we create and promote a programme of over 400 events and days out each year, including exhibitions, workshops, heritage and arts activities, tours, talks, living history and live performances
- we take the stories behind Cadw’s sites and interpret them to inspire visitors and provide creative, exciting, engaging and thought-provoking experiences
- we facilitate learning and engagement with learners of all ages, schools, volunteers, work experience schemes and local communities.
We bring visitors to our sites, publicise all the work that Cadw does and generate income that we reinvest in Cadw’s work.
We do this through a range of activities including:
- international trade events, wedding hire, filming hire and venue hire
- offering high-quality goods for sale at 28 of our sites
- marketing membership and visits through social media, public relations, advertising and our website
- publishing guidebooks and other literature in Welsh and English as well as French, German, Italian and Spanish for our biggest sites.
We provide services to staff across Cadw:
- we make the case for Cadw’s budget, prepare financial reports, assist with the processing of transactions, and provide financial advice
- we ensure proper governance across Cadw, provide secretariat to the senior management team and to the internal operating board, and ensure the offices are secure and operate efficiently
- we provide Cadw’s human resources service, including workforce planning, recruitment, training and development
- we coordinate health and safety procedures.
